#and women are shamed for being interested in anyone gnc

[assfucker3000]

breaking character to say like please stop erasing canonically bisexual/pansexual characters because you ascribe to stereotypes of how a homosexual person behaves or acts can you see how that's harmful and maybe not good just like. In general

[velvetvexations]

Just read that t4t masc4fem (?) kind of article everyone is speaking of, and sure... Being a trans man in the nonbinary lesbian kind of way myself, I kind of understand gnc or queer transfem ppl feeling repulsed since it just feels like too much gender roles...

I can't deal with cis nor trans men who'd approach me like this, not because I see it as predatory but because it's just not my cup of tea. It's not hurting me to get flowers. Or if a femme person is interested in a way that expects an overtly 'manly' role of me etc., again I am not harmed by them expressing such interest.

Initiation isn't coercion, it's where you can either give or not give consent. That's how people find people to date or flirt with. No shit.

Also... There are trans people into those dynamics described in the article. Trans people who wish they could just go on a kind of a stereotypical straight people date. Even a bit old-fashioned flowers and stuff. I think people forget how magical that can be to trans people who, by default, are not expected to be able to experience it.

I'll respect trans folk who find this type of thing gender-affirming. I've seen t4t straight or masc/fem couples like these, as well as butch/femme lesbian couples like this. This is normal trans and/or queer people stuff.

The way people read into the article as inherently rapey or predatory or incelish seem wild to me. Have they ever read anything written by an actual incel...? Because I'll tell you. Incels describe everything a woman says as manipulation. Incels view every interaction with women as a power game. Incels encourage deception, emotional abuse, manipulation and coercion.

None of the above is implied in the article. It's cheesily written for sure, but says something about society how cishets can have their cheesy romantic straight people things but when trans people do, it's gross and bad...?

Trans people are... * checks notes * attracted to or interested in relationships with literally ANYONE and are inherently seen as predators. That's fucked up. I feel like this could even be internalized shame in some of these transfems esp. if terfs have demonized transfem lesbians a lot so it's like. Seeing a trans guy into fem people be masculine and cheesily romantic feels like a taboo, I guess? Could that be it?

Ughh. Also. The part about "exploring sexuality unconventionally" or whatever, being equated to cis guys' tgirl fetishes... Like. People commenting this stuff do not know anything about trans men's sexualities or complex relationships to our bodies. To me that immediately read as;

"Another trans person will understand that the sexual roles or acts we may prefer may not be stereotypical to what people automatically assume about our anatomies."

Allocishet people have an infamously poor grasp of the idea. Trans people on the other hand... May be a liiiiittle better about taking dysphoria to account and not reducing people to specific sexual roles based on their anatomy.

Also they really have decided to view trans men as these hypersexual predatory monsters who can't even be attracted to someone without being a fucking predator. Idk that hurts to read. I wonder if it's again some internalized stuff from how TERFs predatorjacket and shame transfeminine people's sexualities. So they feel instinctively angry, because of shame, when seeing anoter trans person be a sexual being.

Also I wish more people understood not everything other people are into sexually or romantically is about them, nor has to be their cup of tea.

Yeah, it is like, at worst kinna retrograde humor but even on that level it's...not a big deal, and the outrage is especially galling because this is right in the midst of egg drama where it is vitally important we still be allowed to stereotype trans girls.

I wish I had more to add to what you've said here anon but you really laid it out.

[mybrotherinkarkat]

Lanque Bombyx and the Perils of Transmasculine Representation

I remember when Lanque was first announced as a character for Hiveswap Friendsim, and confirmed by the writers to be a trans man. I was so excited. There had been nonbinary characters in Homestuck for a while already, but as cool as that was, I had been really wanting there to be a canon trans guy. I wanted to see myself represented. So even after my interest in Homestuck had waned, I bought and played Lanque’s Friendsim

To call it a let down would be the understatement of the century

I’m gonna stop here and give a disclaimer. I know the writer got a lot of hate and harassment when this first came out, so I want to make it clear that while I have a lot of negative things to say here, none of this should be taken as justification to harass anyone involved in the creation of this character or his Friendsim. I’m not even going to say that I think V did any of this intentionally or with malice, it’s equally possible that the issues come from a lack of awareness. Thoughtful media criticism is important, but please don’t harass anyone in my name, or in the name of trans guys generally 

Also, if you’re one of those people who thinks trans men aren’t “really” oppressed, don’t read this. I don’t want to have to deal with your whining when you inevitably don’t like what I have to say

TW for discussion of sexual harassment and assault

So let’s break this down. There are three routes you can play, each with a different ending: valid, chittr mutuals, and shamed 2 death. The valid route has a completely different characterization of Lanque than the other two, and which characterization you get is dependent upon how you answer a question at the beginning about whether or not you’re old/mature enough to handle a party with adult/sexual/“problematic” themes

If you say no, you get the version I call uwu softboy Lanque. He wears makeup and a flower crown, writes poetry, and is in touch with his emotions. This route gets you an ending where you don’t really befriend Lanque at all, you just strengthen your friendship with Lynera. If you say yes, you get the version I call fuckboy Lanque. He’s mean, overtly sexual, and tries to pressure you into doing drugs and having sex. There are two endings you can get with him. Either you alert Bronya to where you and Lanque are hiding, and therefore don’t end up having sex with him, or you don’t alert her and you do have sex. If you alert her, you and Lanque become chittr mutuals, though it’s implied that this is only so that you can hook up later. If you don’t, there’s a fade to black sex scene and then Lanque calls you a bad lay and leaves you to die of embarrassment 

So what’s the problem here? The problem is that both versions of Lanque play into harmful stereotypes about trans men. The uwu softboy trans guy trope is basically the portrayal of trans men as always small, feminine, and young. This is employed to either infantilize us and therefore strip us of our autonomy (think “young girls are being coerced into transition”) or to portray us as ~evil men~ trying to make ourselves seem less ~evil~ by *checks notes* being gnc. Or both, depending on what’s more politically convenient in a certain situation. For example, in Abigail Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage trans guys are positioned as both the young “girls” being coerced into transitioning and the evil men doing the coercing

The latter use of the softboy trope, the one where we’re supposedly using it to hide our true nature as ~evil men~ is often combined with the idea that trans men are inherently dangerous and predatory by virtue of being men. This is usually employed by either people who call themselves trans-inclusive feminists but haven’t gotten past the idea that feminism means “men bad, women good”, or by TERFs who don’t care that they’re being contradictory. It relies on a form of gender essentialism that, instead of being about  “biological sex” is about a supposed internal gender essence (think “trans men are men because they have male brains”). This trope is used to demonize and dehumanize trans men, and portray us as not needing sympathy or protection. It’s also usually paired with the idea that trans men gain systemic male privilege by transitioning (spoiler: we don’t). This combination of tropes has unfortunately proved to be pretty effective at getting cis women who are otherwise trans-inclusive to turn their backs on trans men

There’s also a racial element here, as Black trans men are typically seen as inherently aggressive due to racism, so the softboy framing is almost exclusively leveled at white trans men. Under white supremacist patriarchy, race and gender are inextricably linked. I’m writing this from the perspective of a white trans man, so there may be nuances I’m missing. Just please remember that there’s no one single trans male experience, and intersecting identities play a role in how bigotry impacts trans men

I also want to stop to talk about the sexual harassment and coercion aspect. I’m not going to speculate on whether or not V intended to portray Lanque as a sexual predator. I can’t know what’s in her head, and frankly it’s not important. Because of the general lack of education around consent in our culture, many people don’t really understand how sexual coercion works or what it looks like, and coercion being presented as normal and fine is unfortunately very common in media. I personally read the way Lanque pressures the player into sex as either sexual harassment (if you alert Bronya) or coercion (if you don’t). While I’m not going to say there are no trans men who are sexual predators, the fact is that trans men are extremely likely to be the victims of sexual violence. According to a study in 2015, roughly half of all trans men have been sexually assaulted, a fact that is rarely talked about and frequently swept under the rug. I’ve personally never seen a media representation of a trans man that dealt with that topic outside of Boys Don’t Cry (and that very emphatically did not handle it well. It was exploitative). So my issue with Lanque being written as sexually predatory isn’t just that I didn’t like it. There’s a real systemic issue with sexual violence towards trans men being ignored and silenced in favor of pretending that trans men are the real danger, and this version of Lanque plays right into it

However, when I first played Lanque’s Friendsim, I couldn’t articulate any of this. I couldn’t really put into words why it hurt so bad. And it did hurt. I went into this excited to see a character who’s like me show up in a franchise that had played a big part in my adolescence, but by the end of it I just felt awful. It wasn’t just that I didn’t like it, playing it made me feel bad about myself. I was ashamed of myself for getting so excited only to be let down. Being angry and not being able to put into words why I was angry only added to that shame. I didn’t want to be associated with Lanque. I didn’t want people to look at either version of him and think that I was like that, or that he was representative of me and my community. I felt betrayed. I also felt like I couldn’t even try to talk about it without being lumped in with the people who were harassing the writer

At the time, the only legible criticism I could articulate was that it was really annoying that they had Lanque take off his shirt and didn’t give him either a binder or top surgery scars. While it’s absolutely possible to be a trans guy with neither, it felt like a deliberate choice had been made to not give him any visible indicators of transness on top of his transness not being mentioned. I get not wanting to make a huge deal out of it, to write him as a trans character whose transness isn’t the focus of the story. But you can do that and also draw Lanque in a binder or with scars. Just have both Lanque and the player treat it like it’s completely normal, or even not acknowledge it at all. That’s a smaller issue, but that’s my advice to cis writers: you can have a character’s transness not be the focus without all but erasing it

Because of all this, I was pretty hesitant when I heard that Hiveswap part two had been released, and that Lanque was in it. I’d been burned before, but I had to know, so I read his wiki and watched a playthrough of his portion of the game. I’m glad I did, because I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it

(Spoiler alert for Hiveswap part two)

While he’s not explicitly called trans, the way him being a male jadeblood was portrayed was almost painfully relatable to me as a trans guy. The scorn, objectification, intrusive questioning, and thoughtless dismissal of his identity were all spot on, in my opinion. I also really liked that his actions felt realistic to what a trans man might have to do under an oppressive system like that. Framing Lynera and/or pushing Joey off the train if she figures him out are ~problematic~, sure, but his other options are to either permanently closet himself or get killed for his identity. And when you combine that with the ruthless nature of Alternian society, it makes sense for his character. After the disaster of his Friendsim, it was refreshing to see a trans guy who didn’t feel like three bigoted stereotypes in a trenchcoat 

I honestly think Lanque makes a pretty good case study for the dos and don’ts of writing a trans guy. And his characterization in Hiveswap is a great example of how to make him morally grey without dehumanizing real life trans men in the process

Obligatory reminder that I’m just one trans guy and my opinion is my own. If you’re a trans guy who sees this differently, that’s fine. If you’re a cis person who sees this differently or thinks I’m wrong or overreacting, no offense but I don’t care even the slightest bit and will block you if you try to start shit on this post

[latter-day-saint-nick]

Transmascs and the Not-Like-Other-Girls Syndrome

Much has been said about the Not-Like-Other-Girls Syndrome already. We as a society seem to have largely accepted that it is a sexist attitude, and I am not here to dispute that. Hating on girly girls for the way they perform femininity doesn’t help anyone. That said, I’ve seen a few posts recently pointing out that girls with NLOGS tend be gender non-conforming teens and young adults who were bullied and ostracised by other girls, and so have a hard time trusting traditional femininity, as they connect it with their abusers. Therefore we should be spending just as much time, maybe even more, telling girly girls to accept tomboys as we do vice versa, and the fact that we don’t shows how much we still cling to society’s ideas of acceptable femininity.

This got me thinking about my own experiences, which I suspect other transmascs will be able to relate to. See, I definitely had a phase as a teenager when I hated most girls and things connected to femininity, including aspects of myself that I considered girly. This was misogynist and wrong and kind of unhealthy. I’m not going to pretend differently. That said, looking back, I can see that much of this hatred came from being a trans boy who hadn’t been given the tools to understand that he was, in fact, allowed to be a boy. Being grouped with girls who I seemed to have so little in common with often made me feel lonely and miserable. To be fair, chances are I wouldn’t have been all that happy being grouped with the boys either, since I wasn’t interested in sports and cars and boobs (that’s what straight teenage boys are into, right?). Even if I’d been raised as a boy, I was still queer and neurodivergent, so that coloured all my childhood experiences.

Anyway, many of my gripes about girls were unfair. I shouldn’t have been annoyed by them for being obsessed with make-up and dieting, even though I found these things stupid. Instead I should have reserved my ire for a patriarchal society that teaches women from a young age that they are worthless unless they are thin and cover up their natural faces. Yes, I realise all that now. But, and this is an important but, my experiences had shown me that it is a short step from “I’m a girl and I care about make-up and dieting” to “all girls should care about make-up and dieting, and the fact that you don’t means there’s something wrong with you”. While there were times I have been shamed by cis men for being insufficiently feminine, most of the shaming came from cis girls and women. Usually it wasn’t even done in a mean-spirited way. Most of these girls and women genuinely thought they were helping me by instructing me on how I should dress or what I should do with my hair. Like we were characters in a teen rom-com, and I was the ugly duckling who is given a make-over by her friends and finally gets to dance with the cute guy.

As always when I discuss transmasculinity, I feel the need to put a disclaimer here. I am fully aware of the fact that to many people make-up and pretty dresses are fun and empowering. There is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with being a woman, just because I decided that it wasn’t for me. But the fact that I even feel like I have to give this disclaimer all the time shows how much more we seem to value the feelings of cis women who embrace femininity over those of women and afabs who reject it. Even when I’m including trans men in my writing, I always have to make sure to show them having positive relationships with the women around them, sometimes in ways that don’t really match my own experiences, lest readers think that these characters just choose to be men because of internalised misogyny. Yeah, that’s a terf rhetoric, but it seems to be common enough that I actively feel the need to combat it at every turn.

But let me make things perfectly clear: to me, personally, traditional femininity was a prison. I hated so many things about it, and I hated the way girls my age and adult women alike were pressuring me to look a certain way and be a certain way. Even now when I see YouTube videos of women talking about the importance of a good skincare routine, I just feel exhausted and wonder how anyone could find joy in that. Once I was old enough to realise that it didn’t matter what other people thought, that I could just cut my hair short and wear fun, comfy clothes, the pressure didn’t stop. And, yeah, that’s how I came down with a serious case of NLOGS. But it’s important to bear in mind that for one thing, of course I wasn’t like other girls - I wasn’t a girl at all. And for another, I had in fact had many negative interactions with girls. Even ones that were perfectly fine one-on-one could turn insufferable in a larger group.

So, yes, those of us who are trans or gnc shouldn’t characterise traditionally girly girls as stupid and shallow. We should all respect each other’s life choices in how we express our genders. But remember that the pressure to perform femininity in a certain way only comes from one side. You don’t get baby butches telling their classmates things like “I don’t know why you keep your hair this long. You’d look so good with an undercut!” or “How do you expect to get a girlfriend dressed like that? Have you ever tried wearing flannels and Doc Martens?” So why should gnc girls and transmascs have to put up with constant comments and criticism on our appearance and then pretend that feminine cis women have never been our oppressors?

[tabby-shieldmaiden]

I have come back from hiatus to make one (1) post, simply because this topic has been on my mind for a while, and I need to get this thought out.

I’ve noticed that in discussions talking about feminist tropes, there’s a tendency to talk about what not to do or a tendency to talk about how something ended up being a feminist work because of what it didn’t do. Like. “Don’t sexualise your female characters”, “don’t just have her be some guy’s love interest”, “don’t have your only female characters be evil femme fatales”. So on so on.

And the stuff that isn’t a list of “don’t”s is all extremely generic writing advice. Like, “having multiple women in a story” not only isn’t applicable in every story (having too many characters in a story can be a problem), but there’s still a lot stuff to consider when talking about how to even develop all those characters that goes beyond “stuff it with multiple girls”. “Write women with complex motivations and agency and so on and so on” is decent advice, but that’s only because that’s good advice when writing characters in general. That’s like telling people about the basic principles of art when they ask how to draw better flowers. It’s likely that they already know about this, but there’s something specific about drawing flowers that’s tripping them up, and they would like some advice about how to do that particular thing better specifically.

So, which brings us to the question: why do people, even other women, tend to have issues writing other female characters? It’s easy to blame it on internalised misogyny, but there’s also other issues at play here, I think. And I have a couple of theories on it.

The first is because a lot of people’s ideas on what is a female character tends to be, well, underwritten, if not poorly written. The archetypes that they have in mind are of things which would make a lot of writers uncomfortable to work with if they care about making art empowering to women. And you can see it in that genre of post that’s like ‘there needs to be more female characters who are like [insert archetype typically associated with male characters]’. Which, don’t get me wrong, I support, if only because this type of thing results in more types of female characters for all to enjoy. But it does show at least one reason why people who care about making art empowering to women might still have trouble writing female characters. Because their prior experiences with female characters have not been all that great. And that colours the way they view the writing of female characters.

And honestly, I think the solution to this is if we could also have more conversations about how to reclaim certain misogynistic female archetypes, or of what archetypes typically seen in male characters we would like to see more of in female characters. That would be pretty fun imo.

The second is that there’s lots of contradictory opinions at play here. And that’s because ‘what makes a good female characters’ is something that more or less everyone who really cares about stories has thought about at one point or another in this day and age. (Or at least it seems that way tbh.) And some people give a generic answer of ‘one who has agency and unique motivations’, some people give specific answers like ‘I like women who aren’t sexualised and I don’t know if you can write sexual women in a narrative in this current day and age without making her for someone else’s consumption’. Or ‘I like women who are sexual in a way where they own their sexuality, because I think that slut-shaming is a pretty awful thing and female characters should be allowed to be sexy or sexual because that can be empowering to some women, especially if the art in question is also made by women’. Or ‘I like soft and motherly and girly women and I feel like people tend to brush aside female characters with these qualities because femininity is undervalued in our society and that makes me upset’. Or ‘I like women who aren’t feminine in the slightest and I think that pressures women face to be feminine are harsh and gnc women need to be told that they’re alright just the way they are’. And all of these are points which different people would agree with or disagree with to differing degrees.

And ultimately, I’ve gotten quite a lot of experience writing women and thinking about writing women, and I have all my opinions about what makes a good female character and how to write women laid out in my head already. But a beginner writer, who maybe hasn’t spent half their life thinking about female characters, but still cares about making art empowering to women, is gonna walk onto the scene and get overwhelmed trying to appeal to everyone’s demands.

(And there’s also the fact that not all advice is created equal and bigotry of other sorts may flow into writing advice, intentionally or no. It’s hard to discern what advice is unintersectional when you’re starting out, especially when there are concern trolls [like terfs, white feminists(tm), abled feminists(tm), etc] out there.)

I feel like, why this has become an issue is because there’s still an underlying assumption that one story should be able to appeal to all women everywhere. And that there’s certain narrative that women will like, and there’s a certain narrative that women will not like. So all advice gets seen as equal. Which isn’t true at all, because by virtue of all being different people with different life experiences, different pieces of art and different narratives are going to resonate with different women.

And so. I guess my conclusion after this bigass infodump is... there’s probably more conversations we could have about how to write better female characters. But most of them start with thinking about what’s not working and trying to come up with solutions for them. Instead of stating what’s not working and leaving it at that. I think now, it is a time for action and doing instead of not doing. And sure, 90% of the female characters and the art that’ll come out of trying and experimentation will be trash, but that’s the case with most art. It doesn’t mean that it’s not worth doing, or that the trash won’t find their audience anyways. The issues that I brought up, why women also have trouble writing female characters, they can’t be solved by women learning everything not to do. I think they can be only solved if we encourage women to write the type of female characters they want to see, regardless of whether or not it fits everyone else’s tastes.

In conclusion, in 2021, let’s just write the girls that we've always wanted to see, regardless of what anyone else thinks!

[bodtabs]

reposting and pinning this

being a straight black trans guy is really weird. there’s so many intersections of experience, and not in the dumb “technically i can reclaim this axis of oppression” level of terminally logged in lgbt person i mean it in a “going about my life” way.

for starters, idt i ever “hated” being a woman, i don’t really relate to that trans narrative, i just realized it was an identity that became increasingly frustrating to align with and moved on to a label that finally fit me. being a black girl was cool, despite all the social toll that came with it, black girls have contributed so much to popular culture and even to our own communities, so there was no real reason for me to dislike it other than “it just doesn’t feel like me anymore” and i like it that way. i have a very comfortable relationship with both black girlhood and black manhood, if anyone asks i’d probably fall under that “i remember being convinced i was a little boy. not knowing why my parents didn’t see it too and insisted on treating me like a little girl.” narrative that seems to be the narrative a lot of "trans stories that won’t make cis people uncomfortably avert their gaze” media. i had (and still do have) genuine interests in a lot of traditionally masculine aesthetics, music, career paths, and hobbies, but i don’t recall ever feeling disgusted, embarrassed, or insecure parts of my life where i was identifying as / being coerced into woman aligned individuality, and the strained relationship i had with my mother because of these things, like a lot of trans guys (understandably) seem to be with theirs. this proves for disconnect occasionally, between who i want to be and who i actually am, but the more time goes by the less i give a shit about who thinks what. i don’t take shit from anyone as a guy because i didn’t do it as a chick, which leads for a lot of leeway in being comfortable with who i was and who i currently am.

i still have a lot of pleasant associations with being a gay woman, i probably wouldn’t be where i am today without a lot of the gnc lesbians and trans bi women, i still feel a sense of community with that identity (never to the point of being invasive, i hope.) i’m never not going to get sentimental about a woman being happy with another woman, comfortable in their own skin; that’s just how my brain is default-wired at this point. i’m not offended by women (cishet or otherwise) not wanting me in their spaces (it’s honestly more validating than being seen as a defanged token feminist boy who will bring no harm or whatever, i much prefer people hearing about me or holding a conversation with me and deciding what direction they want to take with me based on those things, like you would any other human being) but it’s still cool to know that i can have these feelings– still be deeply involved and still have feelings for this culture i’ve ingrained in myself from a young age– and not feel like an intruder or outsider, despite being a straight dude, i’m always going to have a pretty firm grasp of gay culture and won’t get freaked out by people putting the sex back in homosexual like a lot of cishets and even a lot of gnc tenderkweers tend to get every 3 months. it’s honestly been the side of gay culture that i’ve always preferred lol.

i call a lot of bullshit on this “toxic masculinity intricate rituals” stuff that’s come into public conscious in the last couple of years or so as well, not only was it mostly popularized by MRAs (around the same time as public concious on ellior rodger and incel/chad terminology as well…shoulda been a red flag from the beginning imo) not just because it frames men as the ones who suffer the most due to their own actions rather than the women and children they torture on a daily basis, but it’s also been used to racially pathologize the boundaries and mannerisms i have that my (racist) white partners have been uncomfortable with in the past. your weird entitled impulse to police my body and the way i present myself in a way i genuinely enjoy and am comfortable is not remotely subtle, and the mental gymnastics behind your desires to impress your frat buddies does not excuse you brutalizing women on a daily basis and shaming children to the point they have serious issues coping with a lot of hardships that face them later in life.

the most visible majority of the trans masc community is white dudes and they all fucking suck. they’re terrible to women, trans nonbinary and cis, are either extremely liberal in their political stances or simply never talk about anything relating to it at all (and they all have garbage taste in fashion and music, i know that’s kinda petty but i think i’m allowed to be rude to people who try to make wanting to transition into a humanstuck karkat gijinka a universal experience and hozier and constantly self infantalize and weaponize their own softness while expecting everyone else on the planet to wait on them hand and foot.) i’ve met maybe 3 good white trans guys in my life and one of them i’ve been friends with since high school, it really put me off transitioning all together because i was raised mostly by women and a lot of my idols have been women since i was a kid (and even if this weren’t the case, colonialist concepts of respect / equality / gender in general are very different from nonwhite cultures, so even if i wasn’t constantly in immediate proximity of women or didn’t have any “significant” woman figures in my life it would stil feel very weird and removed.)

none of this, of course, is to imply that black men aren’t horrendously misogynistic (especially towards black women. lbr, mostly towards black women, lol. this is another one of those weird intersections, knowing that misogyny is not exclusively a product of white supremacy but that colonialism has definitely catalyzed it.) or that black men won’t use their race to get out of being rightfully accused of misogyny similar to the ways a lot of white gay people use their sexualities as a get out of jail free card, but i really don’t understand white trans guys like this. i think they realize they’re oppressed and cling to it as a personality trait, and when anyone calls them on it they get really offended cus they have nothing else to fall back on, hence all the gatekeeping and regurgitated TERF rhetoric (which any and all TME people have been guilty of, at some point, and a lot of whom unfortunately are still doing as i write up this post) and truscum antics. this nonsense got so bad that it put me off transitioning for like 5 years.

i’m here now, though, and i’m content with it, so i try not to hold too many grudges about it even if it is a bit frustrating and put me behind a lot of my peers. i’m mosly just focusing on how many doors open to you when you’re finally comfortable in your own skin lol.

[lastoneout]

gender is weird! and it's definitely hard to distinguish that for afab folk since we have a bit more wiggle room, there's a long history of blurred lines between gnc women, butch and enbies as well. I have a friend who's a butch lesbian but has considered changing her gender on her ID to neutral. honestly you could just try it out, test some pronouns and labels with friends your trust! there's no shame in realizing it doesn't fit you and reverting later, or even just staying questioning.

I have a few friends who have suggested I try that out and am starting to think that might be the best bet, it just feels...I don’t want to say weird exactly, but I think I’ve always thought of being trans as this like Big Thing with high stakes and thus I almost feel like I’m being a bit disrespectful or, like I’m playing dress-up with something that’s very serious and thus I shouldn’t do it. Which is ridiculous but it’s hard to get over when I’ve really only been exposed personally to one narrative about transness. 

And yeah I think that wiggle room is really where I get caught up cuz it’s like, how do we know? But then that spirals into the “how does anyone know anything really” which is better suited for a philosophy classroom than a personal journey with gender lol

Either way thanks for your input! I’m probably gonna start trying out labels and just see if anything feels right, might be a good idea to just dive in instead of hovering around trying to decide if it’s a good idea or not. I have always felt pretty interested in the label “nonbinary woman” so I’ll probably start somewhere around there when I do, until then I’m still def just questioning. 

[love-it-or-its-free]

@dyke-diva

[edited to update pastebin and make links clickable.]

First, just some more context about me: I am a 33 yr old lesbian, butch (in a nerd way) and quite androgynous/GNC.

Until a year or two ago, I was an ardent supporter of trans activism, as it went part and parcel with being a member of the LGBT "Community".

Literally, asking this same question to myself was a turning point for me. I knew I was supposed to hate and denounce anything TERF-related.... but one day I realized, I didn't know exactly what TERFs had supposedly done, that would warrant such seething hatred against them.

Like I said, I comprehend hating Nazis, because I have seen evidence of the unforgivable brutality of the Nazi regime and its supporters. I've taken history classes, read books and original sources, and watched documentaries about it.

Basically, I have seen enough evidence to understand the scope of Nazi evil, so it makes sense to me why some people go around saying "punch nazis." Personally, I'm not the type to punch anybody... and I question whether punching actually fixes the underlying evil... but based on what I know, I totally understand why nazis are so hated.

But why are terfs so viscerally hated that they are directly compared with a mass-genocidal regime? I want to know the truth. If the evidence is out there, I want to see it, to keep my views updated and accurate.

Now on to your response.

I do not believe that you should debate hate groups. I think that doing so will only help spread their hate and

I don't really believe in debating hate groups, either. But I also believe that having a closed mind is a victory for authoritarians of all stripes. I have no problem engaging with people who disagree with me, because I generally believe in having "strong opinions, weakly held" -- I am firm in my beliefs, but my mind is open to evaluating new evidence. If I deem the new evidence convincing enough, I may change my mind or update my views. I value intellectual rigor, so I want to keep my views accurate and up-to-date.

I am severely distressed about the number of terfs in wlw spaces and think that something should be done about it, it has gotten to the point where if it is not stated directly that they do not support transmisogyny that I will often feel paranoid about being in the space.

Honestly, I would love if you could PM me about these "wlw spaces" that are supposedly crawling with terfs. I feel like I'm reading this from a bizarro mirror dimension, thinking... WHAT wlw spaces? Is there really anything like this, outside of a handful of unpopular tumblr tags and a couple of small subreddits?

The only spaces I know of, especially IRL, are bending over backwards to be so "q***r friendly" that actual lesbians are being pushed out. One local activist in my city, started a public speech by claiming, "terfs are lesbians who..." and went on to drag lesbians for not being inclusive enough. Why only lesbians, I wondered??

Singling out and pressuring lesbians that way is not okay, in my opinion. Lesbians deserve to have spaces for lesbian (natal) women only. Lesbians are allowed to be repulsed by penises. None of that is hateful! Lesbians should not be pressured to sleep with anyone they aren't interested in. Unfortunately, I see that happening a lot these days. The "wlw spaces" I know of, offline and online, increasingly pressure lesbians in this way. Not cool.

Now, I can handle those pressures... but I'm really worried about younger lesbians. Being a lesbian is hard enough as it is! We have a right to exist, and to express our sexuality without added pressures.

and finally reason three, trans people who are afab have been seen to dismiss terfs actions and beliefs purely because terfs do not actively threaten their existence like they do amab trans people.

I'm not sure if I follow this part... it seems like you're saying that some FTMs ("trans people who are afab") do not feel threatened by so-called terfs, because the perception is that terfs are more threatening to "amab trans people"? Sorry if I misunderstood, but I would be interested to learn more about this phenomenon either way.

The person who sent this ask had lots of “Terf Safe” tagged posts on their blog and in their likes (though it seems their likes are now private), so I had blocked them, on the post that I made on my @la-joueuse-ultime blog that I quoted above they had asked why Terfs and Nazi’s are being compared, saying “I know about the reasons Nazis are bad, we can study history to see that evidence. But where is the evidence that terfs are comparably bad?” I had responded “@love-it-or-its-free it’s not that their comparably as bad, it’s that they’re bad. They are a hate group that has killed trans people and because of that they shouldn’t get a voice to spread their hate.” I then told them I planned to block them, I had done so and then they sent this ask.

Well, just to be clear, you were the first to interact with my post. It appears that you went looking in terf-friendly tags, found my post, and decided to interact with it. I'm happy to clarify the details of this, but I think your wording makes it sound like I sought you out, when it was actually the other way around. I posted mild terf-friendly content, you directly compared terfs to nazis. I think that's extreme.

I guess it's a good thing I hid my likes, too, because it sounds like you were ready to trawl for "punishable" content. I mean... who among us has not accidentally tapped the heart while on mobile or something? I hope you aren't really intending to police liked content like that.

Now to the actual ask, I believe the reason you can’t find Terfs that have killed trans people is that, well, you’re literally not looking,

I am quick to google anything that pops into my head, so rest assured, I would not pose this question to a tumblr rando unless I had actually attempted to answer it for myself. I'm asking to try and gather more info/evidence on top of what I have seen already.

or you think that they needed to have direct (by direct I mean they physically took part in) killing the trans person. You don’t need to be holding a knife to take part in someone’s death, you can encourage violence against the minority, you can bully and harass them until they take their own life, or you can fight against medical procedures that some of these people need to live. Terfs have done all of these.

Right... but I specifically asked how you can directly compare terfs to nazis. I agree that bullying, etc. is wrong. But I am asking for the evidence you used to make the direct comparison. You are shifting the goal posts here. I'm okay with that shift if you are... because I'm happy to provide evidence of trans activists doing things like sending death threats to terfs (or any woman who is deemed to have "terfy" views) which seems directly comparable to what you are claiming here.

It took a second search to find Terfs encouraging violence against trans women.

I found similarly scant search results... but like I said, I'm willing to evaluate new evidence when I see it.

This post on Reddit (I recommend being careful, tw for violence) is of a screenshot of a Terf stating that “It is a shame that people cannot do this in America” the post contained a picture of a man seemingly attacking a trans-woman for using the bathroom where she was most comfortable to do so. The posts were made on Spinster, a “woman-centric” social media platform that was made by M.K. Fain, a known terf.

So... I'm honestly surprised you would link to that particular subreddit as evidence of anything. But I'll charitably ignore the source for now. What I see, as far as content, is a screenshot of an anon comment on a website. You claim that the comment must be from a terf. Why? 1) screenshots can be photoshopped. 2) Anyone can sign up for an account on sites like that.

Sorry, but this isn't convincing evidence to me. Even if it's real, it's not a death threat, it's not an incitement to violence. It could be "real" in the sense that some troll signed up to the Spinster site just to troll "as a terf". It's just a shitty anon comment. Of course I object to the sentiment behind it (see anti-violence disclaimer to follow)... but I don't believe it stands up as evidence to support your claims.

(aside: I don't want to make this post any longer than it is, but I noticed some not-very-nice comments from that link and collected them in a pastebin here )

Finally, I researched the actual murder case in question. All eight people arrested in connection with the homicide are men... not terfs.

(I'll include this disclaimer here, though I'm bummed out that I feel the need to be pre-emptive/defensive about it:

I am anti-violence. I condemn violence of all kinds. (See above: I'm a softy, not the punching type) I especially condemn murder and homicide, and I do not endorse eye-for-an-eye justice. I want less pain and hatred in the world, for everybody, even folks who disagree with me.

I believe "the Golden Rule" is called Golden for a reason... it's Key! end disclaimer.)

Not only that but I found many articles directly denying violence against trans people, that I won’t link because they were made by terfs for terfs and I do not want to give them a platform. By denying the violence trans people face you are encouraging it, telling the people who enact the violence that they won’t be punished for it.

Yes, "denying violence" sounds like a bad or at least ignorant thing to do. But how is it remotely equivalent to committing violent acts? Unfortunately, if I can't see the evidence, I can neither refute nor accept it.

Trans people have a shockingly high suicide rate, there is no denying it. This article talks about a Terf that targeted a suicidal trans woman to harass, as well as provides a link to an article about Cathy Brennan, one of many who try to directly prevent trans people from seeking medical help.

I read this, but I couldn't figure out the series of events it's describing. I looked around on my own, and found that it seems to be a response to an ongoing feud between Dana Taylor (author of the piece) and at least one other person. For instance, I found multiple blog posts from the "other side" which described Dana Taylor's participation in harrassment and doxxing campagins. Here's one person on twitter, describing their experience with being targeted:

I just googled myself and found this from 5 years ago which said I was going to be watched. I don't think they watched me.

source thread

That's just one example I found. There were many similar tweets and comments about doxxing involving the author of the link you gave. So I'm open to reading more about these incidents, if you have more links. If something bad happened, I would like to understand better. But right now, this at best looks like just one side of a multi-sided internet slapfight.

If you just listened to trans people you would hear story after story of them being attacked by terfs if you just paid more attention you would see them encouraging violence against trans people, and if you just cared a tiny bit more, you’d realize that trans people are human too.

I am listening, or at least I'm trying to listen by asking good-faith questions while trying not to be attacked for it. Are you doing the same, keeping an ear out for stories of terfs being attacked, and listening to their stories?

How would it make you feel if I said, "if you just cared a tiny bit more, you'd realize that terfs are human too." ?

Anyway, that’s the post thank you for being patient.

Same here. I want you to know that I truly appreciate your thorough reply and the time you spent on it.

[lucht88]

A hypothetical activist community/coalition

Know what is something I’ve been thinking about for a while? I think there are very real and solid grounds to argue that there should be a coalition between: trans women, women with PCOS, intersex women in general, and anyone who identifies as a woman while also having had an excess of unwanted androgens (aka testosterone/masculinizing hormones) at some point in their development/life.

I see it as being a way to fight back against the misogyny we all face, for being women who have some amount of secondary, and sometimes primary, sex characteristics which were caused by those androgens. Due to the cissexist/cisnormative society we all inhabit, we are almost all made to feel some level of shame over these androgenic characteristics, and understandably often try to rectify them through similar means. These include hrt, various temp/perm hair removal methods, contouring/feminizing makeup, etc. We also almost all face some level of difficulty conceiving, inability to carry a pregnancy, or total infertility due to the various changes that these unwanted androgens bring about in our bodies.

We could all benefit from an advocacy platform that denounces the sexist notion that a woman’s validity has anything to do with the amount of androgenic sex characteristics that she has, or has previously had.

I see it as being welcoming of women regardless of whether or not they are gender conforming, and also essentially without considering this as a factor. That is to say, it isn’t advocacy centered around gnc womanhood, lgbtq womanhood, or anything like that. These people are 100% welcome, and will in fact likely be a large portion of the people represented by this advocacy, but it isn’t primarily about that. I want it to be advocacy that is aware of its intersections, but which is primarily a coalition by and for women who have had excessive/unwanted androgen exposure effect their lives.

I’m sure there is fertile grounds for a similar community to be built amongst trans men, intersex men, and all men who have some amount of unwanted estrogenic chracteristics as well. Perhaps a community could even be built by men who face unwanted estrogens and women who face unwanted androgens. However, I don’t feel it’s my lane to say anything more than that on their behalf atm. I’m not at all sure how most nonbinary people will feel about all this, but would want them to feel welcome to engage with either hypothetical community if they felt it represented them, their concens, or their interests...

Anyone’s feedback would be more than appreciated!!! Also, does anyone have any names that pop to mind for this coalition?

-Cora

[safehavenlgbtq]

LGBTQ+ Dictionary

Abrogender:A person whose gender is fluid and always changing.

Abroromantic:A person who has fluid romantic attraction that is always changing.

Abrosexual:A person who has fluid sexual attraction that is always changing.

Acephobia:Range of negative attitudes that one may have/express towards asexual individuals.

Advocate:A person who actively works to end intolerance, educate others, and support social equity for a marginalized group.

Aegosexual:A person who feels arousal but does not want to participate. The disconnection between oneself and the sexual target.

AFAB:A person who is assigned female at birth.

Agender:A person who does not identify themselves as having a particular gender.

Ally:A typically straight or cis-identified person who supports, respects, and fights for equal rights with members of the LGBTQ+ community.

AMAB:A person who is assigned male at birth.

Androgyny(ous):A gender expression that has characteristics of both masculinity and femininity.

Androromantic:A person who has romantic attraction to men, males, and/or masculinity.

Androsexual:A person who has sexual attraction to men, males, and/or masculinity.

Anongender:A gender that is unknown to yourself and others.

Aromantic/Aro:A person who experiences little or no romantic attraction to others. A lack of interest in forming romantic relationships.

Asexual/Ace:A person who experiences little or no sexual attraction to others. A lack of interest or desire for sex or sexual partners.

Baby Dyke:A lesbian who is young and new to being a lesbian.

Bear:A gay man who is often larger, has more body hair, and is more masculine presenting.

Beard:A person of the opposite gender that dates/marries a closeted lesbian or gay man to cover up their homosexuality.

Bicurious:A person who is curious about having sexual experiences/attraction with people of the same gender/sex. A person who has an intense interest in bisexuality, but may not fully be confident in classifying themselves as such yet.

BifiA person’s self-proclaimed ability to, based on stereotypes, determine whether someone is Bisexual. Bisexual Wifi.

Bigender:A person whose sense of gender identidy emcompasses two genders.

Binder:A piece of clothing used to flatten the chest, often worn by transmascualine or androgynous identifying people.

Biphobia:Range of negative attitudes that one may have/express towards bisexual individuals.

Biromantic:A person romantically attracted to two genders. This attraction does not have to be equally split.

Bisexual:A person, physically/sexually attracted the same gender, and other genders. This attraction does not have to be equally split.

Bottom Surgery:Surgery for the construction of a male-type genitalia, or for a female-type genitalia.

Bull:A gay man who is very built/muscular.

Bull Dyke:A lesbian who is notably masculine in appearance or manner. Most masculine of butch lesbians.

Butch:A lesbian who is masculine.

Chapstick Lesbian:A lesbian who is somewhat of a "tomboy." They tend to not fully fit the extremes of a stud or femme lesbian, but a blend of the two.

Cisgender/Cis:A person whose gender identity and biological sex assigned at birth align.

Closeted/In The Closet:A person who have not disclosed their sexual/gender identity. Whether for safety reasons, social pressure, or otherwise.

Coming Out:Process by which one accepts and/or comes to identify one’s own sexuality or gender identity.

Constellation:An arrangement or structure of a polyamorous relationship.

Cub:A gay man who is a smaller Bear. Usually a younger/less mature Bear.

Deadname:The birth name of a person who has since changed their name.

Demiboy:A person whose gender is only partially male.

Demigender:A person whose gender is only partially connected to a certain gender.

Demigirl:A person whose gender is only partially female.

Demiromantic:A person who does not experience romantic attraction unless they have formed a strong emotional connection.

Demisexual:A person who does not experience sexual attraction unless they have formed a strong emotional connection.

Diesel Dyke:A lesbian who drive a truck. Typically more masculine.

Drag King:Someone who performs masculinity theatrically.

Drag Queen:Someone who performs femininity theatrically.

Dyke:A lesbian. Usually referring to a more masculine lesbian, but not always

Dykon:A lesbian icon.

Dysphoria:Term used to express distress experienced as a result of the sex or gender they were assigned at birth.

Faggot/Fag:A gay man.

Feminine of Center(FoC):A range of terms of gender identity and gender presentation for folks who present, understand themselves, relate to others in a more feminine way. Feminine of center individuals may also identify as femme, submissive, transfeminine, or more.

Feminine Presenting:A person who expresses gender in a more feminine, for example in their hairstyle, demeanor, clothing choice, or style. Not to be confused with Feminine of Center, which often includes a focus on identity as well as expression.

Femme:A lesbian who's notably feminine in appearance or manner.

Folx:A general neutral term for a group of people.

FTM/F2M:Abbreviation for female-to-male transgender person.

Gay:A person who is homosexual. An umbrella term used to refer to the LGBTQ community as a whole, or as an individual identity label for anyone who does not identify as heterosexual. Commonly used to refer to a homosexual male.

Gaydar:A person’s self-proclaimed ability to, based on stereotypes, determine whether someone is LGBTQ. Gay Radar.

Gender:The feeling of being male, female, both, or neither.

Gender Binary:Idea that there are only two genders; male/female and that a person must be strictly gendered as either.

Gender Expression:External display of a person's gender, through a combination of dress, demeanor, social behavior, and other factors, generally measured on scales of masculinity and femininity. Also referred to as “gender presentation.”

Gender Fluid:A gender identity that varies over time.

Genderflux:A gender intensely changes over time.

Gender Identity:Internal perception of a person's gender, and how they label themselves.

Gender Neutral:Nondiscriminatory language usage that can apply equal to people of any gender identity.

Gender Non Conforming(GNC):A gender expression that does not match either masculine or feminine gender norms.

Gender Normative/Gender Straight:Someone whose gender presentation reinforces ideal standards of masculinity or femininity.

Genderqueer:A gender umbrella term. A gender that's anything other that male or female.

Gender Roles:Socially constructed and culturally specific behaviors and appearance expectations imposed on men and women.

Grayromantic:A person who does not want to have romantic affiliations very often, but does sometimes experience romantic attraction and desires.

Graysexual:A person who does not want to have sex very often, but does sometimes experience sexual attraction and desires.

Gynoromantic:A person who is romantically attracted to women, females, and/or femininity.

Gynosexual:A person who is sexually attracted to woman, females, and/or femininity.

Hasbian:A woman who used to identify as a lesbian, but now dates soley men.

Heteroflexible:A person who primarily has heterosexual attractions but who has willingness to partake in homosexual activity, or minimal desire to.

Heteroromantic:A person who is romantically attracted to memebers of the opposite sex.

Heterosexual:A person sexually attracted to members of the opposite sex. Also known as straight.

Homoflexible:A person who primarily has homosexual attractions but who has willingness to partake in heterosexual activity, or minimal desire to.

Homophobic:Umbrella term for a range of negative attitudes that one may have towards members of LGBTQ community.

Homoromantic:A person who is romantically attracted to memebers of the same sex.

Homosexual:A person who is sexually attracted to members of the same sex. Also known as gay.

Hormone Replacement Therapy(HRT):Taking hormones to enable a person's outward appearance to conform more closely to one’s inner gender identity.

Internalized Homophobia:Experience of shame, aversion, or self-hatred in reaction to one’s own feelings of attraction for a person of the same sex.

Intersex:A person whose combination of chromosomes, gonads, hormones, internal sex organs, and genitals differs from the two expected patterns of male or female.

Kiki:A lesbian who is comfortable with either a passive or aggressive partner.

Lesbian:A woman who is attracted romantically, erotically, or emotionally to other women. A homosexual woman.

LGBTQ:An acronym for (L)esbian, (G)ay, (B)isexual, (T)ransgender, (Q)ueer, and more in the community.

Lipstick Lesbian:A lesbian with a highly feminine. Is sometimes used to refer to a lesbian who is assumed to be (or passes for) straight.

Masculine of Center(MoC):A range of terms of gender identity and gender presentation for folks who present, understand themselves, relate to others in a more masculine way. Masculine of center individuals may also identify as butch,stud, aggressive, boi, transmasculine, or more.

Masculine Presenting:A person who expresses gender in a more masculine, for example in their hairstyle, demeanor, clothing choice, or style. Not to be confused with Masculine of Center, which often includes a focus on identity as well as expression.

Metrosexual:A man with a strong aesthetic sense who spends more time, energy, or money on his appearance and grooming than is considered gender normative.

MOGAI:Acronym for (M)arginalized (O)rientations, (G)ender (A)lignments/Identities, and (I)ntersex.

Monogamy:The practice of, desire to, or orientation towards having one partner.

MTF/M2F:Abbreviation for male-to-female transgender person.

Mx.:Title that is gender neutral, replacing Mr., Ms., Miss, Mrs.

Non Binary:A person who identifies with or expresses a gender that is neither entierely male nor entierely female.

Omnigender:A person whose gender is vast and diverse of multiplicy.

Omniromantic:A person who experiences romantic attraction for members of all gender identities/expressions.

Omnisexual:A person who experiences sexual attraction for members of all gender identities/expressions.

Otter:A gay man who is very hairy, with a thin or athletic build

Outing:Involuntary or unwanted disclosure of another person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or intersex status.

Packing/Packer:Wearing padding or a phallic object in the front of the pants or underwear to give the appearance of having a penis and male bulge. Often used by trans* males.

Pangender:A person whose gender is vast and diverse of multiplicy.

Panromantic:A person who experiences romantic attraction for members of all gender identities/expressions.

Panscan:A person’s self-proclaimed ability to, based on stereotypes, determine whether someone is Pansexual. Pansexual Scan.

Pansexual:A person who experiences sexual attraction for members of all gender identities/expressions.

Passing:Term for trans* people being accepted as, or able to “pass for,” a member of their self-identified gender/sex identity (regardless of birth sex). Or an LGB/queer individual who can is believed to be or perceived as straight.

Polyamory:The practice of, desire to, or orientation towards having ethically, honest, consensually non-monogamous relationships.

Polygender:A person whose gender is many, but not all.

Polyromantic:A person who is romantically attracted to multiple, but not all genders.

Polysexual:A person who is sexually attracted to multiple, but not all genders.

Queer:An umbrella term for someone who identifies as part of the LGBTQ+ community.

Questioning:A person who is unsure about or is exploring their own sexual orientation or gender identity.

Romantic Attraction:An emotional affinity for someone that evokes the want to engage in romantic behavior.

Romantic Orientation: .Type of romantic, emotional/spiritual attraction one feels for others.

Sex Reassignment Surgery:Surgical options that alter a person’s biological sex.Some refer to different surgical procedures as “top” surgery and “bottom” surgery to discuss what type of surgery they are having without having to be more explicit.

Sexual Attraction:Affinity for someone that evokes the want to engage in physical intimate behavior.

Sexual Orientation:Type of sexual attraction one feels for others.

Sexual Preferences:Types of sexual intercourse, stimulation, and gratification one likes to receive and participate in.

Skolioromantic:A person romantically attracted to genderqueer and transsexual people and expressions.

Skoliosexual:A person sexually attracted to genderqueer and transsexual people and expressions.

Stem:A lesbian who identifies between Femme and Stud.

Stud:A masculine lesbian. Also known as ‘soft butch’.

They/Them/Theirs:Gender neutral pronouns.

Third Gender:A person who does not identify with either man or woman, but identifies with another gender.

Top Surgery:Surgery for the construction of a male-type chest or breast augmentation for a female-type chest.

Transexual:A person who identifies psychologically as a gender/sex other than the one to which they were assigned at birth.

Transfeminine:A gender used for a person AMAB but identify as a gender close to female .

Transgender(Trans*):Umbrella term covering a range of identities that transgress socially defined gender norms. Trans with an * is often used to indicate that you are referring to the larger group nature of the term. A person who identifies psychologically as a gender/sex other than the one to which they were assigned at birth.

Transition(ing):The process a trans* person undergoes when changing their body appearance either to be more congruent with the gender/sex they feel themselves to be and/or to be in harmony with their preferred gender expression.

Transmasculine:A gender used for a person AFAB but identify as a gender close to male.

Transphobic:Range of negative attitudes that one may have/express towards transgender individuals.

Tucking:A practice, well-known in both trans and drag circles, of putting one's penis between and behind one's legs, so that it's not visible from the front of the body.

Twink:A gay man who is slender but masculine, with no body hair.

Wolf:A a gay man who is lean, muscular, and semi hairy.

Ze/Hir:Alternate pronouns that are gender neutral.

[mugasofer]

"You should know that an oppressed group shouldn't bend and sacrifice themselves in order to accommodate the group that oppresses them."

I'm gonna pick this out and write an ideological manifesto against it, although much of it could perhaps be boiled down to "people aren't groups".

1. It disregards intersectionality, in the original sense that e.g. a black man faces some different problems from a black woman.

2. Every person is a member of multiple groups, and people who are only members of privileged or disadvantaged groups are quite rare. Males may not be oppressed, but mentally ill and gnc people clearly are.

2.1. If you can justify treating someone poorly simply because they're a member of a privileged group, you can justify treating almost anyone poorly, because almost everyone is a member of a privileged group.

3. Harm exists outside of axes of oppression. If a person is, say, raped, that's still terrible even they're male and deserves our compassion and help (although not "bending over backwards" more than we would for anyone else in that situation obvs.)

3.1 Rudeness is a form of harm. This may not apply to you, but I have definitely encountered radical feminists who misgender trans people, make fun of them and insult them quite horribly.

4. Oppression rarely takes the form of a cynical "oppressor class" and an innocent "oppressed class". Sometimes it does, but usually in situations like war. In the case of sexism specifically, internalized misogyny and toxic effects of patriarchy on men are both common.

5. Misogyny and sexism don't operate purely on the basis of sex. A trivial example would be that a trans woman who passes and is mistaken for a female will obviously be treated as one. A less trivial example would be the devaluation of things associated with the female sex, often arbitrarily, and the subsequent shaming of males who engage with them as "feminine" - e.g. the colour pink.

5.1 The idea of "transmisogyny", that is, transphobia as misogyny directed at trans women, is IMO often overstated but real. Trans women are often subject to forms of sexual abuse usually targeted at females, such as forced prostitution.

5.2 Sex isn't perfectly binary and trans people actively muddle it. Anything based on having breasts and many things based on having a vagina can apply to a trans woman who has those things; hormone therapy makes you physically much weaker than a cis man.

6. With all that said, there is absolutely a place for sex-based activism and resources. It should just try to avoid harming other marginalised groups along the way.

""terf" is a word that represents no-one"

Some people do identify as terfs, while other people identify as radfems while supporting the trans movement (which is why the term was coined, by a radfem who was strongly pro-trans, according to Wikipedia anyway.)

I think it's a pretty accurate term because, while you may identify as including all females, in practice you (as a group/movement) tend to alienate FtM trans people by calling them women, saying they've been brainwashed by the patriarchy to think they must change their sex in order to do stereotypically male things, insisting that society will never treat them as a man and so they should give up, refusing to use male or gender-neutral pronouns for them, etc.

Again, I mean this as a movement, I don't know if these all apply to you and I'm happy to call you a merf if you want.

I'd be interested to see some radfem blogs by merf trans men, if you have links. Whether some of those followers you mentioned, people whose writing you admire, whatever.

[[READMORE]]

However, consider these points for why people might consider you anti-trans and not simply anti-male, just from these posts alone:

You didn't respond to the OP by saying "of course I would treat that trans person the same way you do if I met them, by calling them by their preferred pronouns and being sympathetic to their tales of transition", and I still don't know if that's the case. Your focus has been, as OP pointed out, entirely on abstract ideology without ever addressing the concrete example their post was about.

You refer to "a new form of sexism [responsible for trans people], gender activism ... rapidly destroying [women's] rights". Obviously trans and nonbinary people regardless of birth sex tend to disagree with this.

You refer to conservatives who hate trans people for deviating from assigned gender roles as "knowing what biology is", implying they're correct, and refer to yourself as being in a common group with them called "people who understand basic biology". That group has a name, and that name is "transphobes". "Basic biology" as you put it also applies to trans men, and anti-trans initiatives are usually designed so they harm trans men (e.g. bathroom bills), even if (like you) conservatives are more focused on trans women as a threat.

So there is at least one TERF who regularly reads and reblogs from me. And I’d like to address that person for a moment.

(Don’t worry, I’m not going to name you or block you. I’m not going to curse or meme or laugh at you.)

But every time I see you reblog from me I wonder the following:

I’ve mentioned before that one of the baristas at my local coffee shop is a young trans woman.

Every interaction I have with this person is... your average friendly interaction between a worker and a regular customer. Friendly hi how are you, occasional news in one’s life, etc. With the little detail that occasionally she mentions things about her transition, like “I went to the dmv to get my name and marker changed” because those are things going on in her life and she knows she can mention them to me.

How does any of this demean or insult or harm or mock me? It’s someone else living their life and modifying their body as they see fit. How does any of this steal my identity, or my thunder, or my mojo, or my body parts, in any way at all? What is it I should feel so threatened by, knowing this person probably takes hormones and would rather I call her Edith than a boy’s name that would confuse people anyway?

(Not her real name of course, I have zero interest in Internet jerks being mean to a sweet young person who’s always been nice to me.)

Have you thought about that? Because I click on your blog sometimes and I see how angry and hurt you are, but... all I see in my meatspace life is somebody existing. Maybe a bit oddly, okay, but who among us is not weird?

Have you ever really thought about that?

Maybe you have, but just in case you haven’t, this post is for you.

[dontlickme4benefit]

Making a Resolution

So, I’ve decided to take up a goal I had from this year, 2017, and reboot it for the coming year. I have been thin all my life and have been teased for it. Or people make comments whether they mean to be rude or not, about how I’m thin and I should eat. There have been times in my life I didn’t eat much. But I was also going through a lot. High school was a pain and I did at one point not really eat. I can be known to forget to eat when I get busy. Recently, since about three years ago I have noticed my body has changed preferences as to when I’m hungry. If I up early my stomach will immediately go into hunger mode. And then for a while I would get hungry around 11 and then at lunch and wait until dinner. I’d snack through out the day and basically ate enough to sustain my small frame. I’d neither gain or lose. Then my body decided to change. I was getting hungry earlier in the morning and then at 10 and noon and something around three and dinner. Sometimes late night. Last year I got tired of people saying how skinny I was. Including my doctor. I have a high metabolism. I am what bodybuilders and some nutritionists call an ectomorph. Meaning I’m naturally thin with a high metabolism and it’s actually rather hard to gain and build muscle. Doesn’t help I’m small as well. A short 5′4″. And.... apparently I look young as well. At the age of 35 people seem to think I’m between 18-23. Much too young to be a mom of three. One being 14. 

While we are talking about it, don’t tell people like us that looking young is a blessing. When you are thin, short, and look young you get treated like a child. Looked at like your some teen mom who couldn’t keep her body to herself. Tell me I look young when I’m 60. There is a negative side to it all.

Now, back to the subject at hand. As a single mom of three my life gets busy. It’s likely to change in some way and can throw my life a different direction. Not that I need to say it but I have one disabled child who is 24/7 care. This year I did a good three months of a weight gaining diet and exercise four times a week. I finally gained 20 lbs. I felt happy. I now only have three pairs of pants that fit because it wasn’t just my weight that made it hard to fit into them. Those squats thickened my legs. :-) But then life changed and I wasn’t keeping up. I managed to keep the weight until I get sick this December. I drank so much water that I pretty much lived in the bathroom. But still, I was told I was skinny. I’ve noticed that body shaming is at it’s all time high. Mostly geared to the heavier side and to most women. But I’ve noticed a disturbing mind set among it all. That skinny isn’t shamed. 

That those of us who are thin, unless we are near death, aren’t thought to be ridiculed as much as the other half is. This isn’t true. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve heard, “Oh, what do you do to stay so thin?”, “Do you eat?”, and while working at GNC, a store I love, and having to promote weight lose products, “Wow is this what you used?” Now I realize some people are just innocently assuming I lost weight having to promote said product. Don’t assume this. Avoid it and just ask if you have known anyone to have had success with said product. Because that person may not have needed it. Not saying that this is a bad thing. In fact there was a time skinny girls would have had said products flying off of the shelves because to them when they looked in the mirror they only thought they were fat when they weren’t. This still happened but it wasn’t long ago that there was an epidemic of girls purging and such. I remember shows depicting the dangers of being too thin. Saved By the Bell has a few episodes with Kelly going bonkers trying to be thinner. It’s a real issue. Now my most interesting comment about my size was, “Can I lick you and get thin?” What. The. Hell?

But now there’s those of us who don’t try to be thin and yet are. My favorite food is a medium rare steak with broccoli and mashed taters and maybe some shrimp. and a nice mixed drink. But I rarely have that. So expensive. I really have wanted to get back to my goal. Which I wont state until I’ve reached it. But I will say I’ve been as thin as 97lbs but I was very sick at the time and was suffering from something having to do with my uterus and was having a three month period that no doctor knew the cause of. Thankfully I stopped after three months. But had to be put on the pill and to my horror, for the longest time would bleed heavily if I missed one day. I haven’t been that weight since that time. I am now actually a weight I have never been without being pregnant. But still called skinny. I worked hard to get this weight and was hoping the chiding would stop. So now I want to gain more, and build muscle. I figured having a blog that I told myself I would commit to would help be a workout buddy of sorts. In this blog I will try to post pictures often, hoping for no hate and will delete comments if I have to; what I ate that day and the workouts plus how I feel. And anything else relevant to my goals. I was inspired to not only gain weight and not be thin but to do so in no shame of myself by an amazing girl who did the same: Stef Joson from Switzerland. She has an Instagram account if you want to look her up. Lastly I will start my posts Jan 2nd.